Dame Meg to make a difference

Update: 2:35PM STREET killings of women in Papua New Guinea show increasing concerns about possible increases in gender-based violence in the Pacific.

Honest about that fact that her being a woman has not made any difference in the lives of women affected by GBV, the head of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat has renewed her commitment to the issue.

At least through the mechanisms of PIFS, secretary general Dame Meg Taylor called on partners to be relentless, which she said she would through policy development and implementation through partners of the organisation.

The Papua New Guinea national said she was horrified by what she said was renewed increase in the street killing of women in her own country.

"We must be relentless in our efforts to end violence against women and girls. The past 16 days have seen a flurry of activities related to the issue of gender-based violence and personally," Dame Meg said.

"I was reminded of a question posed by a woman journalist in Samoa at the end of the 48th Pacific Islands Forum who, acknowledging the beginning of my second term as secretary general of the Pacific Islands Forum asked if I felt my position has made any difference to women in the region.

"I had to tell her: No. I didn't think that I'd given as much as I could during my first term."